Where is God Moving Us?
1 Amens
Welcome- Chip
Kid’s Story- Amy
Reading- Psalm 121 (Bob)
Song-He Will Not Rest (Bob)
Evergreen is now about 3 and half years old. The dream for this community began to really take shape about four years ago in the Fall of ’03. I was working at a large church here in town, and though it’s a perfectly great church, I was becoming less and less convinced that their model of church, of community was long-term a healthy one that would be able to make a difference in the next generation. I longed for something simpler, something less resource and labor-intensive, something a bit more relevant to the culture of Portland that I knew, and, selfishly, something that would allow me as a pastor to actually be a pastor, not a program-director or a manager or administrator…
So, when the time came for me to, uh, move on… evergreen began to take shape. We spent a lot of time in the beginning and really, all along the way, talking through our core values and trying to keep ourselves cognizant of them. Other than the main 5 core values, What other values/ etc have we tried to work in as part of our community? (disagree w/out disengaging, organic, etc)
As I think about these last 3 ½ years, that song we sang becomes particularly meaningful for me. God has blessed this community- He has taken care of us, He has protected us from a lot of the garbage that many new churches struggle with.
Prayer- All of Us/Bob
As for the future… I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and praying this summer about evergreen, and here’s at least one conclusion I’ve come to… We’ve not yet begun to understand all the implications of the Gospel for our community.
I realize that’s kind of a serious statement, but it comes with these caveats- Part of that way of doing church that I and maybe some of you have been moving away from over the last years was one that tends to see the Gospel as the ABC’s of the Christian life. It’s the elementary kind of, foundational stuff. And so pretty soon you move on to the really important stuff- you know predestination vs free will and speaking in tongues vs not, etc. But more and more, I’m becoming convinced that the Gospel is not the ABC’s of the Christian life… it’s the A-Z. It’s that piece of our story which is the central hub, the center from which everything else moves out. And so it’s not something we’ll ever be beyond. It’s so simple that even my son Jack, who’s 3½ is starting to get it, and so profound that we can spend the rest of our lives teasing out the implications and truly understanding it.
But back to what I was saying a second ago about “the future.” I can’t tell you exactly where we’re going as a community. From day one, people have asked me- what’s your five year plan, and I always say the same thing, “I don’t know.” It’s not that I don’t have ideas, it’s not that I don’t dream dreams about certain things and won’t challenge this community to move in certain directions… but in the doing of that, I always want us to remain open as to how it looks, how it works, I want us to figure out together the specifics… to figure out together where we go. So, let me say a bit about how we are going, because I really feel like that’s my job, and the job of the elders to help us define and live out- not to come down like Moses from the mountain with the five and ten year plans all laid out, but to call us as a community, wherever we go, whatever we do, to do it in a certain way…
We’re going to look at two passages in the rest of our time together this morning, so if you have a Bible, grab it…
First is 1 Peter 2:10-12
We are actually going to spend about two months this fall, in October and November talking through 1 Peter 1 and 2 and how it is that the Gospel shapes our community… But this morning, I just want to draw out a couple of things and in particular, look back to the Old Testament where Peter draws his language from and see what both say to us as a community, as we move forward this next year.
VS10
I said the word “Gospel” earlier- And if you are new around here or to church in general, you might not know what that means. Over the past year I’ve mentioned once or twice a shorthand way to summarize the Gospel. Anyone remember?
Here’s something cool about Peter- whereas Paul spends some good time saying- “This is what the Gospel is” Peter tends to focus on what the Gospel does. And what He says here that it does is this: It gives us our identity. Now, that’s just five short words (“It gives us our identity”), but it says a lot- in fact, it says so much it’s going to take us about 7 weeks this Fall to even begin to describe how the Gospel shapes a community like ours, but let me give you just a thumbnail sketch of one or two ideas…
Martin Luther (Picture) whom some of you know was another Christian who spent a whole lot of time in pubs, had an insight that rocked the world of his time and really changed the course of history… his insight, as He was reading the Bible way back in the 1500's was this: “Religion” says “I am accepted by God because I obey.” The religion Luther was a part of said that, the religion most people in the world are laboring under says that. But… the Gospel says something radically different- it says “I am accepted, and so I obey.”
Let me read VS 10-11
VS10-11
We'll talk about this language of “temporary residents and foreigners” in a minute, but for now, notice something: Which comes first- receiving God’s mercy or living a certain way, keeping away from certain things?
Yes- we receive God’s mercy and then we can begin to live the radically counterculture way of life in the Way of Jesus. So what’s the problem?
As Luther realized, “religion” or “I am accepted because I obey” is the default mode of the human heart- we begin believing it when we are children, many of us because it’s exactly what our parents taught us, we live by it as adults in this world, and here’s the worst part- even after we begin following Jesus… it’s still the default mode of our hearts and minds.
And the only thing that will change that tape in our mind, move our hearts from our silly attempts at self-salvation to a true reliance on God, to truly doing what we talked about last week, namely putting our hope in God alone… is the Gospel. Hearing it, understanding it, breathing it, singing it, living it- centering our lives and the life of our community on it.
And because the default mode of every human heart is to seek acceptance whether from God or from others on the basis of how well I perform and what I do, we have GOT to keep the Gospel front and center. It has to be the deepest, most central part of our identity as community because it’s the only thing that will keep truly centered.
Some of you came from very moralistic, legalistic backgrounds. You were hurt by “church” and by the all the guilt and shame that was piled on you there. You know what I mean when I say that "religion," the idea that “I am accepted because I obey” drains the life out of a church and drains the life out of the people in it. At the end of the day you end up with a lot of hurt people.
But there’s a ditch on either side of every road… and the ditch on the other side of this particular road is this: You can miss the gospel not only through moralism and legalism but also through relativism. We talked about this last week- moving away from the kind of infantile idea that God is whoever we want to make Him and towards the God who really is. See, when God is whoever or whatever you want to make Him, and right and wrong are whatever you want to make them– you have also drained life out of a community and what you end up with is… a lot of hurt people. They may feel better about themselves than the folks at the legalistic church down the road, but without a grounding in life in the way of Jesus and what it tells us about right and wrong and how we relate to each other as regards how we treat one another socially, emotionally, sexually… you still end up with some very hurt and hurting folks.
See, if God is preached as simply this demanding, angry God or if He is preached as simply an all-loving God who would never command anything or ask me to change–in either case people will not be transformed. And all you have to do is look around the world, read the paper, watch the news and you’ll soon come to the conclusion that unless the human heart is changed, unless people are changed, the world will continue to produce Darfurs and Jeffrey Dahmers. Build a community on moralism or build it on relativism, and you‘ll get the same exact result. Do you wonder why there’s so much corruption and craziness in both the Democratic and Republican parties? This is why! Moralism/Relativism are both much easier to build a community on… But ultimately, we would be frightened or shamed or we would be soothed and stroked, but we would not have our lives changed at the root, because we would not be hearing the gospel. If you preach just a demanding God of Justice, people will change certain outward things that may need to change, but they will feel crappy about themselves the whole time they are doing it; if you preach just an all-loving God who doesn’t care about Justice and what is right, people might have a higher self-esteem, but they will cut off God from speaking into and about certain vital areas of their lives.
But the Gospel, the gospel, evergreen, produces a unique blend of humility and boldness, of tears and joy in a person, and in a community.
The gospel says: I am so lost that God Himself in the person of Jesus had to die to save me. But I am so loved that Jesus was glad to die to save me. That, when really understood changes the very core, the very basis of my identity- and the more I meditate on that very balanced equation, the more it begins to transform me from the deepest part of who I am, outward. And the more it will change our community.
So, when I say that one way we will go, as we go forward is “centered on the Gospel” that’s exactly what I mean to say- centered. We are going to have to work hard as a community to avoid both the legalistic religion of the moralists which does nothing but bring guilt and shame and the bloodless relativism of the other extreme which may end up with people who feel better about themselves, but continue to live lives which prove harmful and hurtful to themselves and to others because their community doesn’t have either the nerve or the love to call one another to change.
Ok, I haven’t forgotten about Peter… He says (and I like the NIV a bit better on VS 12, so I’ll read it in that)
VS 11-12 NIV
We’re going to talk at length later this Fall about this balance that Peter spells out of living in such a way that though people clearly understand what you are about, still do not get what you and your community are all about- though they don’t agree with what you believe and parts of how you live, they see the good that you do. They know that if you were to disappear, there would be a vacuum… And that in and of itself becomes a big part of pointing them to God.
But Peter uses some interesting language here… he says “I warn you as aliens and strangers”… where is he getting that?
This is Old Testament language- he’s pointing his readers back to a picture in the book of Jeremiah and telling them, shorthand, how God wanted them to live back there? That’s how He wants you to live now. And us too ☺
Let’s look at it- Jeremiah- It’s right in the middle and a little to the left. While you are looking for that- here’s the background. God’s people had been dragged away as captives from Israel to Babylon. Their homes and Temple had been destroyed, many of them had been killed, they were hurting, wounded, homesick… wondering what next. But a big question for them was this: How do we live while we’re here? Do we do our best to keep away from the people of Babylon, to not really mix with them, or do we assimilate? Do we take on their customs and culture and blend? And along comes a guy named Hananiah, who said he was a prophet… he wasn’t, but they didn’t really have certification back then, so pretty much anyone… And he began to tell the people “Stay separate- God’s going to pull you out of there within two years! Don’t get too attached to those people or that place!” Unfortunately, God wasn’t really speaking through Hananiah… so…
JER 28 VS 17… Yeah… Look at VS 1 of chpt 29
And this is what the letter said-
VS 4-7
What do you see here? What stands out to you?
They were dealing with one of the same questions that we do today- as the people of God, or as we say now people living life in the way of Jesus, how do we relate to those around us- do we separate ourselves from them like moralists? Do we completely live so that there are few or no differences at all like relativists? Or do we do something different…
We’re going to spend a whole Sunday on this later this Fall, but for now: God told them, even as they were to retain their fundamental identity as the people of God, they were to give themselves to that place, to work for it, pray for it…And like these people that Peter was basing his thoughts on, and like those to whom he was writing, as we move forward as a community, I believe we need to tie ourselves more and more to this city of Portland- to loving and serving our neighbors and our neighborhoods, to praying for and working for the peace and the welfare of this place. Who should be picking up the parks? Us. Who should be working hard for the poor? Us! Who should be, to integrate Peter in here, living counterculturally as a community that lives very differently when it comes to things like sex, money, power, but is radically committed to the good of this place- pouring ourselves out for the good of the city? I think you know the answer…
And to circle back even a bit farther… why? So God will accept us? No. Because God has brought us peace and mercy and so it naturally flows out of us- when we really understand the generosity of God to us, we naturally begin live that way ourselves and share it with others- both through our words and our works…
What else? I love this:
VS 6
You guys are doing a pretty good job on this one. I love all the weddings, all the births we have had. That’s a great sign that there is life in this place, in this community. But it also works that way on a macro-level.
We have never wanted to be about getting bigger and bigger as a community… but, we have always wanted to be about more and people coming into or back into relationship with Jesus… so the way that we have worked out that tension in our mind is to say that we will do as a whole community what God commanded the people here to do- multiply. And no, I’m not talking about anything weird, I’m talking about planting other communities. Over the last couple of months, some things have been brewing in various people’s heads for how we get there, and I think we have some pretty unique ideas that I want us to talk about as a community on the forum, here on Sundays over the next few weeks- a way to maybe get there as soon as next Easter.
All in all, my dream for us as we move forward and grow remains what it has been- that we would be a Gospel-centered, outwardly focused community that makes a difference for the city of Portland- physically and spiritually- a community that works hard together, prays and worships together, loves one another and does what Peter says to do- lives such a good life as individuals and a community, out of thankfulness for what God has done for us, that though they don’t get us, Portland sees God in us…
And let me say this to everyone here: Help us be that kind of community… Some of you are on the fringes, and that’s okay. You’re newer, you are checking things out, maybe trying to get past a history of hurt and pain with church- that’s okay. Take your time. But some of you have been hanging on the fringes for a long time, and it’s time to be in- to help make things happen- to commit to this community and our mission here in Portland. To living gospel-centered lives that preach with both our words and our works, as individuals, and as a community…
Let’s pray!
Songs-
Wrap up/ feedback-
Blessing- St Fursa
Read MoreKid’s Story- Amy
Reading- Psalm 121 (Bob)
Song-He Will Not Rest (Bob)
Evergreen is now about 3 and half years old. The dream for this community began to really take shape about four years ago in the Fall of ’03. I was working at a large church here in town, and though it’s a perfectly great church, I was becoming less and less convinced that their model of church, of community was long-term a healthy one that would be able to make a difference in the next generation. I longed for something simpler, something less resource and labor-intensive, something a bit more relevant to the culture of Portland that I knew, and, selfishly, something that would allow me as a pastor to actually be a pastor, not a program-director or a manager or administrator…
So, when the time came for me to, uh, move on… evergreen began to take shape. We spent a lot of time in the beginning and really, all along the way, talking through our core values and trying to keep ourselves cognizant of them. Other than the main 5 core values, What other values/ etc have we tried to work in as part of our community? (disagree w/out disengaging, organic, etc)
As I think about these last 3 ½ years, that song we sang becomes particularly meaningful for me. God has blessed this community- He has taken care of us, He has protected us from a lot of the garbage that many new churches struggle with.
Prayer- All of Us/Bob
As for the future… I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and praying this summer about evergreen, and here’s at least one conclusion I’ve come to… We’ve not yet begun to understand all the implications of the Gospel for our community.
I realize that’s kind of a serious statement, but it comes with these caveats- Part of that way of doing church that I and maybe some of you have been moving away from over the last years was one that tends to see the Gospel as the ABC’s of the Christian life. It’s the elementary kind of, foundational stuff. And so pretty soon you move on to the really important stuff- you know predestination vs free will and speaking in tongues vs not, etc. But more and more, I’m becoming convinced that the Gospel is not the ABC’s of the Christian life… it’s the A-Z. It’s that piece of our story which is the central hub, the center from which everything else moves out. And so it’s not something we’ll ever be beyond. It’s so simple that even my son Jack, who’s 3½ is starting to get it, and so profound that we can spend the rest of our lives teasing out the implications and truly understanding it.
But back to what I was saying a second ago about “the future.” I can’t tell you exactly where we’re going as a community. From day one, people have asked me- what’s your five year plan, and I always say the same thing, “I don’t know.” It’s not that I don’t have ideas, it’s not that I don’t dream dreams about certain things and won’t challenge this community to move in certain directions… but in the doing of that, I always want us to remain open as to how it looks, how it works, I want us to figure out together the specifics… to figure out together where we go. So, let me say a bit about how we are going, because I really feel like that’s my job, and the job of the elders to help us define and live out- not to come down like Moses from the mountain with the five and ten year plans all laid out, but to call us as a community, wherever we go, whatever we do, to do it in a certain way…
We’re going to look at two passages in the rest of our time together this morning, so if you have a Bible, grab it…
First is 1 Peter 2:10-12
We are actually going to spend about two months this fall, in October and November talking through 1 Peter 1 and 2 and how it is that the Gospel shapes our community… But this morning, I just want to draw out a couple of things and in particular, look back to the Old Testament where Peter draws his language from and see what both say to us as a community, as we move forward this next year.
VS10
I said the word “Gospel” earlier- And if you are new around here or to church in general, you might not know what that means. Over the past year I’ve mentioned once or twice a shorthand way to summarize the Gospel. Anyone remember?
Here’s something cool about Peter- whereas Paul spends some good time saying- “This is what the Gospel is” Peter tends to focus on what the Gospel does. And what He says here that it does is this: It gives us our identity. Now, that’s just five short words (“It gives us our identity”), but it says a lot- in fact, it says so much it’s going to take us about 7 weeks this Fall to even begin to describe how the Gospel shapes a community like ours, but let me give you just a thumbnail sketch of one or two ideas… Martin Luther (Picture) whom some of you know was another Christian who spent a whole lot of time in pubs, had an insight that rocked the world of his time and really changed the course of history… his insight, as He was reading the Bible way back in the 1500's was this: “Religion” says “I am accepted by God because I obey.” The religion Luther was a part of said that, the religion most people in the world are laboring under says that. But… the Gospel says something radically different- it says “I am accepted, and so I obey.”
Let me read VS 10-11
VS10-11
We'll talk about this language of “temporary residents and foreigners” in a minute, but for now, notice something: Which comes first- receiving God’s mercy or living a certain way, keeping away from certain things?
Yes- we receive God’s mercy and then we can begin to live the radically counterculture way of life in the Way of Jesus. So what’s the problem?
As Luther realized, “religion” or “I am accepted because I obey” is the default mode of the human heart- we begin believing it when we are children, many of us because it’s exactly what our parents taught us, we live by it as adults in this world, and here’s the worst part- even after we begin following Jesus… it’s still the default mode of our hearts and minds.
And the only thing that will change that tape in our mind, move our hearts from our silly attempts at self-salvation to a true reliance on God, to truly doing what we talked about last week, namely putting our hope in God alone… is the Gospel. Hearing it, understanding it, breathing it, singing it, living it- centering our lives and the life of our community on it.
And because the default mode of every human heart is to seek acceptance whether from God or from others on the basis of how well I perform and what I do, we have GOT to keep the Gospel front and center. It has to be the deepest, most central part of our identity as community because it’s the only thing that will keep truly centered.
Some of you came from very moralistic, legalistic backgrounds. You were hurt by “church” and by the all the guilt and shame that was piled on you there. You know what I mean when I say that "religion," the idea that “I am accepted because I obey” drains the life out of a church and drains the life out of the people in it. At the end of the day you end up with a lot of hurt people.
But there’s a ditch on either side of every road… and the ditch on the other side of this particular road is this: You can miss the gospel not only through moralism and legalism but also through relativism. We talked about this last week- moving away from the kind of infantile idea that God is whoever we want to make Him and towards the God who really is. See, when God is whoever or whatever you want to make Him, and right and wrong are whatever you want to make them– you have also drained life out of a community and what you end up with is… a lot of hurt people. They may feel better about themselves than the folks at the legalistic church down the road, but without a grounding in life in the way of Jesus and what it tells us about right and wrong and how we relate to each other as regards how we treat one another socially, emotionally, sexually… you still end up with some very hurt and hurting folks.
See, if God is preached as simply this demanding, angry God or if He is preached as simply an all-loving God who would never command anything or ask me to change–in either case people will not be transformed. And all you have to do is look around the world, read the paper, watch the news and you’ll soon come to the conclusion that unless the human heart is changed, unless people are changed, the world will continue to produce Darfurs and Jeffrey Dahmers. Build a community on moralism or build it on relativism, and you‘ll get the same exact result. Do you wonder why there’s so much corruption and craziness in both the Democratic and Republican parties? This is why! Moralism/Relativism are both much easier to build a community on… But ultimately, we would be frightened or shamed or we would be soothed and stroked, but we would not have our lives changed at the root, because we would not be hearing the gospel. If you preach just a demanding God of Justice, people will change certain outward things that may need to change, but they will feel crappy about themselves the whole time they are doing it; if you preach just an all-loving God who doesn’t care about Justice and what is right, people might have a higher self-esteem, but they will cut off God from speaking into and about certain vital areas of their lives.
But the Gospel, the gospel, evergreen, produces a unique blend of humility and boldness, of tears and joy in a person, and in a community.
The gospel says: I am so lost that God Himself in the person of Jesus had to die to save me. But I am so loved that Jesus was glad to die to save me. That, when really understood changes the very core, the very basis of my identity- and the more I meditate on that very balanced equation, the more it begins to transform me from the deepest part of who I am, outward. And the more it will change our community.
So, when I say that one way we will go, as we go forward is “centered on the Gospel” that’s exactly what I mean to say- centered. We are going to have to work hard as a community to avoid both the legalistic religion of the moralists which does nothing but bring guilt and shame and the bloodless relativism of the other extreme which may end up with people who feel better about themselves, but continue to live lives which prove harmful and hurtful to themselves and to others because their community doesn’t have either the nerve or the love to call one another to change.
Ok, I haven’t forgotten about Peter… He says (and I like the NIV a bit better on VS 12, so I’ll read it in that)
VS 11-12 NIV
We’re going to talk at length later this Fall about this balance that Peter spells out of living in such a way that though people clearly understand what you are about, still do not get what you and your community are all about- though they don’t agree with what you believe and parts of how you live, they see the good that you do. They know that if you were to disappear, there would be a vacuum… And that in and of itself becomes a big part of pointing them to God.
But Peter uses some interesting language here… he says “I warn you as aliens and strangers”… where is he getting that?
This is Old Testament language- he’s pointing his readers back to a picture in the book of Jeremiah and telling them, shorthand, how God wanted them to live back there? That’s how He wants you to live now. And us too ☺
Let’s look at it- Jeremiah- It’s right in the middle and a little to the left. While you are looking for that- here’s the background. God’s people had been dragged away as captives from Israel to Babylon. Their homes and Temple had been destroyed, many of them had been killed, they were hurting, wounded, homesick… wondering what next. But a big question for them was this: How do we live while we’re here? Do we do our best to keep away from the people of Babylon, to not really mix with them, or do we assimilate? Do we take on their customs and culture and blend? And along comes a guy named Hananiah, who said he was a prophet… he wasn’t, but they didn’t really have certification back then, so pretty much anyone… And he began to tell the people “Stay separate- God’s going to pull you out of there within two years! Don’t get too attached to those people or that place!” Unfortunately, God wasn’t really speaking through Hananiah… so…
JER 28 VS 17… Yeah… Look at VS 1 of chpt 29
And this is what the letter said-
VS 4-7
What do you see here? What stands out to you?
They were dealing with one of the same questions that we do today- as the people of God, or as we say now people living life in the way of Jesus, how do we relate to those around us- do we separate ourselves from them like moralists? Do we completely live so that there are few or no differences at all like relativists? Or do we do something different…
We’re going to spend a whole Sunday on this later this Fall, but for now: God told them, even as they were to retain their fundamental identity as the people of God, they were to give themselves to that place, to work for it, pray for it…And like these people that Peter was basing his thoughts on, and like those to whom he was writing, as we move forward as a community, I believe we need to tie ourselves more and more to this city of Portland- to loving and serving our neighbors and our neighborhoods, to praying for and working for the peace and the welfare of this place. Who should be picking up the parks? Us. Who should be working hard for the poor? Us! Who should be, to integrate Peter in here, living counterculturally as a community that lives very differently when it comes to things like sex, money, power, but is radically committed to the good of this place- pouring ourselves out for the good of the city? I think you know the answer…
And to circle back even a bit farther… why? So God will accept us? No. Because God has brought us peace and mercy and so it naturally flows out of us- when we really understand the generosity of God to us, we naturally begin live that way ourselves and share it with others- both through our words and our works…
What else? I love this:
VS 6
You guys are doing a pretty good job on this one. I love all the weddings, all the births we have had. That’s a great sign that there is life in this place, in this community. But it also works that way on a macro-level.
We have never wanted to be about getting bigger and bigger as a community… but, we have always wanted to be about more and people coming into or back into relationship with Jesus… so the way that we have worked out that tension in our mind is to say that we will do as a whole community what God commanded the people here to do- multiply. And no, I’m not talking about anything weird, I’m talking about planting other communities. Over the last couple of months, some things have been brewing in various people’s heads for how we get there, and I think we have some pretty unique ideas that I want us to talk about as a community on the forum, here on Sundays over the next few weeks- a way to maybe get there as soon as next Easter.
All in all, my dream for us as we move forward and grow remains what it has been- that we would be a Gospel-centered, outwardly focused community that makes a difference for the city of Portland- physically and spiritually- a community that works hard together, prays and worships together, loves one another and does what Peter says to do- lives such a good life as individuals and a community, out of thankfulness for what God has done for us, that though they don’t get us, Portland sees God in us…
And let me say this to everyone here: Help us be that kind of community… Some of you are on the fringes, and that’s okay. You’re newer, you are checking things out, maybe trying to get past a history of hurt and pain with church- that’s okay. Take your time. But some of you have been hanging on the fringes for a long time, and it’s time to be in- to help make things happen- to commit to this community and our mission here in Portland. To living gospel-centered lives that preach with both our words and our works, as individuals, and as a community…
Let’s pray!
Songs-
Wrap up/ feedback-
Blessing- St Fursa
Comments:
Login to post comments